I was saying this to a couple of parents just about a month ago. Not about a virus but about behavior and sleeping.

“Things will improve, but they will get worse first.”

Those were my parenting words but they now they have a new meaning as well. But we can learn from the parallels. We can be OK with the getting worse part. We can breath into the difficulty and know that it won’t last forever.

So if your child isn’t getting good sleep and you know that putting a stricter routine into place is actually going to make the behavior worse. You are correct! But don’t let that stop you! It will get worse, but then it will get better.

If you know that staying at home and not getting a fun coffee or visiting the park will make the whole pandemic shorter and fewer deaths- then do the hard part now because it will get better and it will get better faster, the more work we put in now.

Do the hard part now, knowing that it will get better faster, the more work we put in now.

I know this is hard. Parenting is hard and your children will learn so much from this experience. They will learn that we sometimes do things for our community and not for ourselves. And that we take care of each other and that we can do hard things.